Week 1 roundup

The calendar in my old Nokia, the one I lost, showed which week it was in the calendar; I find that none of my remaining calendars (Google calendar, Windows, Mac, or ancient backup Nokia) have this function. So, I won’t be using the number of the week much in post headings, at least until I buy a new phone! Anyway, I know for sure that this has been the first week of 2008…

On New Year’s eve, I had an invitation to go to a barbeque. I was a bit dubious at first, as it was at the home of a friend-of-a-friend, and I wasn’t sure I felt up to being polite to strangers; I felt more like being contemplative. Plus, there was a taijigong class that evening. In the end, I decided to skip class and go to the barbie, since I was getting a bit too antisocial.  As it turned out, it was a really good evening, with quite a lot of people I knew or kind-of-knew, and we had a really good time with lots of friendly piss-taking and banter.

Round about 11, I said my farewells and headed up to the temple at Bright Hill. I went to their countdown last year, which wasn’t really to my taste, but I wanted to see in the New Year again to the sound of the 108 chimes of the bell. I got there at just the right time; I went to stand next  to the bell and, while I was debating where to stand, found that the crowd had sort of formed up around me. Next thing I knew, the monks had arrived, and I wound up pretty much facing the abbot as he rang the bell. What I didn’t know last year was that the crowd was largely composed of people who had spent the previous week on retreat at the temple, and this was the culmination of that.

I didn’t stay too long afterwards, and got a cab home. On New Year’s Day, Madam Ge had arranged a farewell meal for Sun Zhi Jun and Mi Jun Pei. We went to a fish restaurant on Marine Parade, and had a nice few hours. Most people had a buffet; as the sole veggie, I was brought a plate of vegetable noodles. There were lots of speeches of appreciation from various students (I was “persuaded” to make one as well, and almost died of embarrassment!), and gifts of tokens of esteem to all of our teachers. The evening finished off with karaoke. I have an deep dislike of karaoke  – I don’t like to sing, and I never know the words or, often, the tune – so I didn’t sing. Five years in Asia, and I’ve never yet sung in karaoke – and I don’t plan on breaking that precedent!

On Wednesday, I went for solo practice, and then to drink tea with Chin Woo friends. I’m trying to cut down on the beer for the new year… Thursday to taijigong class at the Nam Wah Association.

On Friday, Master Zhou took me through a lot of exercises designed to work on loosening up the shoulders, and developing explosive power. My power is currently more of a damp fizzle; more work needed. A good place to start is on getting my posture right; I almost gave myself whiplash at one point as trying to project force forwards from the shoulders shook my neck and head back and forth…

Last night, for the first time in over a year, there was no more baguazhang with Madam Ge. Instead, I headed down to Lavender for my first class in Zen Meditation at the Kwan Yin Chan Lin centre. It was a big class, with around forty students, though I don’t know how many were first-timers; quite a few were return students. There were quite a few foreigners.  It was a very calming session, as Ven. Chi Boon began to outline what Zen is about.

One thing that I found very interesting was when he asked us what Zen is. When some students tried to answer, he pointed out that by using words, we depart from the true nature of zen. How could we answer without using words? As we mulled this over, trying to discover some abstract way to achieve this, intellectualising the problem, an assistant standing behind us suddenly rapped the floor loudly with a stick. The surprise of the noise jerked us back into the moment. That was the answer all along… I found it interesting because I’ve read about this before, just as you are reading it now, and thought I understood – but there was an almost physical sensation as the mind returned, and I hadn’t expected that.

We began to practise seated meditation; I’m nowhere near flexible enough to sit in full lotus position, or even half-lotus. My ankles are very stiff. I suddenly realised that they used to be much looser; after the first meditation retreat I attended in Thailand, I was meditating regularly, and that really stretched my ankles. It was during that period that I first went to Beijing, and began to study baguazhang – I wonder if stopping regular meditation is why I seem to find mud-stepping harder these days? Stiffer ankles…?  Hmmm. The style of meditation we were using is all about breathing from the dantian, which is very good for me – I’ve been finding that difficult recently.
We also spent ten minutes last night in slow walking meditation, where practice in bagua stepping proved useful.  I’m looking forward to the rest of the course! I have a feeling that it will tie in much more closely than I expected with my work on taijigong and bagua…

End of the needles

Well, yesterday was our last class for the bagua needles. There was a bit of a sting in the tail – I’d thought that it would just be a revision session, but there was more to learn, and it was the toughest session yet for me.

Up until this class, I’d thought that we were learning a linear form; this isn’t unheard of in bagua. Yesterday, it turned out that it’s a circular form. We’d been taught the movements in a linear form to make it easier, but yesterday, we  turned it into a circle. Mostly this was pretty straightforward, but there were some parts where I wasn’t sure what the frack was going on… It didn’t help that it’s intended to be performed in a small, 8-step circle but – due to the size of the class, we were walking around a much larger circle, so when we were supposed to be on the circumference looking outwards, we were actually at the centre looking inwards, as it were. I think most other people found this easier to get the hang of, but of course I couldn’t follow the verbal explanation and got totally lost…

Anyway, I had my camera so at the end I  asked Mi Lao Shi if I could film her doing the set as it was meant to be done. She was OK about that, but we had to go down a floor to get decent light (the class was back in our regular place, on the top of a car park; the light was pretty bad). Sun Lao Shi was waiting for her so that they could leave but, to be fair, they were very patient! As soon as she had finished the set, she jumped into the waiting car, and off they went! Perhaps I’ll see them in Beijing, perhaps not…

I’m glad to have the video, anyway. I can put it on my iPod and use it for a learning aid when I’m practicing in the park!

Bagua bi, nearly done

It’s Christmas Day, but that doesn’t stop dedicated bagua students from attending class! For today only, we were indoors, in a local school’s sports hall.

As I’m not taking the “Applications” course, I got there just as that was winding up. Apparently I’d missed Master Sun doing some demonstrations, though later I got to see him showing xingyi set that was very impressive.

We finished the needle set today, and were all given a certificate of attendance for the course or courses that we’ve participated in:

My goodness, what a terrible picture of me! Or perhaps not, since I’ve completely failed in my plan to lose weight

Today’s final part of the set was quite tough for me to get right; Mi Lao Shi had to correct me a number of times; I’m sure I’m straining her patience, but if so, she doesn’t show it! Anyhow, we still have one final revision class tomorrow night, and then that’s the needle class finished. It’s a very nice form, I do still really like it!

So now it’s time to go do a bit of last-minute Christmas shopping, sparing a thought for my bagua classmate Jono, who as I speak is somewhere in Eastern Russia, heading for Moscow on the Trans-Siberian express…

Pan guan bi, lesson 2

More to learn tonight, and as a class we’re collectively showing signs of difficulty remembering the moves; some are visibly struggling. Well, it’s an intensive course, we knew that, but it’s still a lot of ground to cover. There are a lot of people there, over 30, and it can be difficult for some to see what’s being demonstrated. We’re in rows, with Mi Lao Shi on one side, and Ge Lao Shi on the other, so that as we turn there’s always one in view. They take it in turns to guide the class; I sometimes get the feeling that there’s a certain battle of wills over who gets to lead when and for how long

I make sure I get to stand in the first rank, near a teacher; since I can’t understand the spoken directions, I have to be able to see the demonstration clearly. It so happens that both lessons so far I’ve been nearest to Mi Lao Shi, who I must say is a good teacher; she speaks slowly and clearly, demonstrates the move from different angles, and is generally very clear to follow. I hadn’t met her before, and I’m impressed. Sun Lao Shi gave a talk at the end; other than that, he didn’t take an active role in tonight’s class.

Before I go on, let me just remind you all that this is a learner’s blog, not an expert’s view. As I go through classes, I try to make sense of what I’m experiencing, and to work out what it all means. Sometimes I just get it wrong, and I look back later and think “how stupid” – as I’m sure more experienced martial artists do when they read some of what I write. Well, never mind; at the end of the day, I’m just trying to get better.

So, that said, Stephan asked me what I meant in the last paragraph of my last post, so here are some thoughts I had while I was on the bus after class.

The taijiquan I practise is all Yang-based, so it’s pretty slow. I start by trying to be empty and soft; as I move, I’m alternating between full and empty, hard and soft. When I’m yielding, there’s an element of force ready to be expressed; when I’m expressing force, the ability to yield is present. The way weight, energy, etc, are used is like the taiji symbol: ying becomes yang, yang becomes yin, all part of an integrated whole.

With the bagua needle, I feel that the point of each needle seems like one end of a bar of energy. The bar’s energy changes. Each move represents a hexagram of several bars, depending on how the points and body are moving. Are the points moving in the same direction, or in opposite directions? In a straight line, or circling? Horizontally, or vertically? In parallel, or diverging? With the turn of the body, or against it? Arms, upper torso, legs, all moving the same way or in different ways… Each move thus has several “energy components” – full yang, full yin, changing yang, changing yin… Lots of small circles, and combinations of planes, all rapid and compact… Opening joints, closing them…kou bu bai bu…

In my mind’s eye, there’s a flickering effect as these different elements combine, fly apart, recombine in a different order… it’s like getting a small notebook, drawing one hexagram on each page, and then flicking rapidly through the sequence from beginning to end.

Does that make any sense? Basically, my experience of taiji and bagua are both about the interplay of yin and yang. Taiji does this with the body integrated as a whole; bagua needles does it as a combination of lots of smaller components… I’m sure I’ll be corrected by those who know better – which I welcome, and appreciate – but for the moment, this is how it’s making sense to me…

Bi+

My home internet connection is really playing up at the moment, and things keep timing out; here’s a few more thoughts on last night’s class which I would have added to the last post if I’d been able to access WordPress for more than a few minutes…

The form we’re learning is not the form shown in the YouTube clip I embedded recently, which apparently is also taught by Master Sun. In fact, in its general movements, it seems a bit more compact and ‘purposeful’, rather than showy – in fact, something more like the Blacktaoist clip of ‘Yin’ style. Of course, I say this after only one introductory lesson, so let’s wait and see!

The ‘pen’ has a rotating ring near the blunt end, which slips over the middle finger; this is used to spin the pen for rapid changes of direction. We were supposed to wrap non-slip tape around the  ring, but I forgot. So, it got pretty slipper, which made controlling it a bit more difficult than strictly necessary! Still, I managed, and didn’t drop either pen at all, though it was a close thing a couple of times.

What else..? Master Sun has a really strong Beijing accent! I have a number of his VCDs, which often start with him giving a short talk about the history and philosophy of baguazhang, and I hadn’t really noticed his accent there… perhaps he was “talking posh”, as we would say in Wales!

Madam Mi switched into English to give me some comments and feedback during the class. As the only caucasian in the class I guess, of course, I stand out as obviously not being a Chinese-speaker; however, I know that some of the Singaporean ‘hua ren‘ (Overseas Chinese) in the class also have weak Mandarin – so I hope they also benefited.

More on why I like this form… I suppose it’s because with this form I’m really feeliing bagua’s ‘whirlwind’ energy – frequent and rapid changes of direction, movement in the horizontal and vertical planes… if in taijiquan, I tend to think of yin and yang energy, and moving from to the other, in this needle form I really am getting a sense of the enrgy moving from one trigram to another… not sure I can really explain this one. Anyway, I could be imagining it; let’s see how I feel after a few more lessons!

Pan guan bi

So, just back from the first “Judge’s Pen” lesson. Wow. Very cool.

The class was led mostly by Madam Mi; Madam Ge assisted, and took over the instruction later on. Master Sun gave a talk and explanation from time to time, but spent most of the lesson sitting to one side, puffing away on cigarettes.

There was a very good turnout. I forgot to do a headcount, but I think from memory there were about thirty in the class.

So… I like this form. The first weapons forms I learned were for the dao, and taiji dao is still the only weapon form I’m halfway competent in. I much prefer the jian, though; I like the harmony and balance of the straight sword – and I really enjoy the bagua jian form, though it hasn’t really settled into my memory yet (which is why I’m taking the revision course on Saturdays at the moment). But, and but… my goodness! I do like this Judge’s Pen form! It just feels totally right… I think, if I understood correctly, Master Sun was saying that it’s used for diǎnxuè attacks, and the precision of that is something I really find appealing.

I’m really looking forward to tomorrow evening’s class…

Upcoming classes with Master Sun Zhijun

At class with Madam Ge last night, we got confirmation that her own lineage master, Master Sun Zhijun will be holding classes in Singapore later this month (December 2007).

Master Sun (online bio here and here) was born in the same village as Dong Hai Chuan’s famous disciple Cheng Ting Hua. Cheng’s younger brother was Cheng Dianhua, who also studied directly with Dong. He taught everything he knew to his son, Cheng Yousheng.

Master Sun studied bagua with Cheng Yousheng himself, as well as with his sons. More information is available at his Wikipedia profile.

Master Sun will be arriving in Singapore this week, and staying until the end of the year. He will be running two separate courses. His Singapore-based disciples, Ge Chunyan and Mi Jin Pei, will be assisting him.

Course #1: Baguazhang Applications

Dates: December 11, 12, 18, 19, 20, 25 and 26 2007 (7 classes)

Time: 19:30 – 20:45

Cost: S$200 for the 7 classes. (A discounted price is available for Madam Ge Chunyan’s students).

Course #2: Cheng Style Judge’s Pen (Bagua needles)

Dates: December 11, 12, 18, 19, 20, 25 and 26 2007 (7 classes)

Time: 20:50 – 22:00

Cost: S$200 for the 7 classes. (A discounted price is available for Madam Ge Chunyan’s students).

Both classes will be held at 65A Marine Parade Drive, Singapore. For more details, call 9025 3887 or 9298 9054. Madam Ge can also be contacted via email: ge_cy at yahoo dot com dot sg.

This is a great opportunity, and personally speaking I’m really looking forward to studying the rare needles form! Here’s a clip of it from YouTube:

Things change, and we move on

Life has got in the way of blogging lately, as it’s wont to do! I think this is a moment of big shifts – things from now on are not going to be the way they have for the last year  or so. Here’s a quick roundup:

• Events, lectures, meetings and wotnot have prevented me from meeting Master Zhou for the last three weeks. It’s a big pity, but unavoidable. On the other hand, I’ve been practicing his form on my own, and it’s taking root – I think, and at last! I’m looking forward to class next week…
• I’ve been attending the qigong classes  at the Nam Wah Association regularly, and feeling more and more benefits every time. My posture is noticeably improving (to me, at any rate).
• Big changes with my Saturday night bagua: we are now moving into a purely revision mode. I’ve already mentioned that I’m re-doing the sword form for revision. The empty palm class is now stopping new work, though. Any class will naturally suffer attrition, and there are very few of us left from the group that started together in August last year. Some have joined from other classes, and that’s kept our numbers up. However, a few are coming less and less regularly, and with me due to leave next year, I think Madam Ge has decided that the class numbers have dropped below critical mass. So, we’re moving to a revision program until February, by which time a class that started after us will have caught up to where we’ve reached, and the two groups can merge and move on together. I, of course, won’t be here then.
• I may not do much more even of the revision schedule, though. I’ve just noticed that the Korean Zen school down at Lavender, which I’ve visited a few times, will be running a new course on Zen Meditation (link to PDF file) from early January. These don’t happen all that often; I’ve wanted to take part before, but always decided to stick with the bagua classes instead. I’d like to take this one though – I don’t know when I’ll get another chance!
• My Drunken Broadsword teacher is still not well, so classes haven’t resumed. I’ve never been very good at this, and i suspect that once he’s better I would be starting from scratch again. I think that I may not start again – at least until after I get back from Beijing next year… Partly it’s that I have so much to do in preparation and partly…
• … I’m getting more and more keen on a certain lady, and weekends are pretty much the only time we get to meet…

So, much is about to change. Where it goes from here, I’ll have to wait and see…

Dazed and confused

It’s been another heavy week and I’m tired. As in, really tired. However… I’m not working tomorrow and, with nothing in particular to do in the morning, I’ll be sleeping a lot. Yay me!

My site traffic is going through the roof, and I’m not able to tell why – WordPress’ s statistics isn’t giving me any clues – why has the number of visitors trebled recently?

Anyway, events in the last week…

- Back to class with Madam Ge, where I also started a revision class in the sword form.

- My Drunken Sabre teacher was unwell, so no class last Sunday.

- Qigong class on Monday night, and this evening were very interesting. The Nam Wah Association is participating in the Singapore Sun Festival. As a result, this week’s classes have been held in the Colonial District, outside the Asian Civilisations Museum, looking across the river to the towers of the CBD, and Boat Quay. It’s been very cool We’ve moved on to more focused qi movements, and to the ‘vibration’ exercises to soften and relax the internal organs. I have a very long way to go here before I even get back to where I was before. Nevertheless, I know I’m on the right path because I’m getting flashbacks to times and places I haven’t thought about for years: an emotionally charged visit to Welshpool; a happily melancholic day at Portmeirion; galettes and mead in Rennes. I’ve already written about how I think these qigong exercises have many similarities with Vipassana meditation, and for me this week’s lesson have only reinforced that. Very encouraging…

So, tomorrow, sleep and random stuff, before heading for class with Master Zhou in the evening…

Week in review:confidence wobbles a bit

Not much activity here, this week: I find that my blogging energy tends to alternate between here and my other blog, and recently I’ve been active there rather than here.

I haven’t practiced so much this week either. On Wednesday, one of my normal solo practice nights, friends from Beijing were in town, so I went out to catch up with them. Last night, Madam Ge was in Malaysia so there wasn’t any class. Instead, I went to the cinema to catch Resident Evil: Extinction. Hehehe, it was entertaining enough, though probably won’t appear on anyone’s list of the 21st century’s greatest films. I’m absolutely terrible when it comes to suspense in films, so I was jumping in my seat all the way through, much to the entertainment of those next to me.

I did make it to class with Master Zhou on Friday. He was late, so he says he won’t charge me for that class, which is very good of him. As usual, we went through the form and on to some new material. However, we spent a lot of the lesson talking theory, about the importance of the number of steps, and issues relating to the time of day that you practice. One of his Chin Woo students had come along as well, and helped a lot by translating, which made things a lot easier! He also showed me some more attacks, particularly to the throat; one point on my windpipe is actually still very tender. It just goes to show how deadly bagua can be! He reiterated, strongly, that I need to be practicing every day, otherwise the lessons will ultimately be of no value. So true. Sigh…

The Drunken Broadsword is continuing as well; I’ll be leaving for today’s class shortly. It turns out that some of what our teacher had us working on before was just introductory moves, not part of the actual set; unfortunately, that means I’m having to un-learn those moves, which I’m finding a bit confusing and demotivating. This, I guess, is just one of the consequences of not being able to understand what your teacher is saying. Hehe, I should mention that last week, one of our teacher’s friends came along to watch. He’s a Hung Gar Preying Mantis master, and showed us how he can easily drop into the splits, body facing forward, not sideways; he did this onto a sheet of paper, then asked Jono to try to pull the paper from underneath him. The paper tore: his whole weight was directly on it. He’s 82 years old.

Yesterday, I bought myself an iPod Touch. I’m hoping to load all the clips I have of my various teachers onto it, so that when I go to practice solo, I can use this for reference whenever I’m hazy about what to do next.